Rock the Boat

Rock the Boat

Saving America's Wildest River

When satirical writer and avid kayaker George Wolfe organizes a boating expedition down the entire 52 miles of the notorious Los Angeles River, he and his motley crew become entangled in a legal controversy of national proportions. With startling images of the LA River, insightful interviews and a quirky sense of humor, Rock the Boat looks at the challenges society faces in providing clean water to urban populations, and delivers a bright alternative to the current spate of doomsday docs. To purchase DVDs for home or educational purposes, please contact us directly.

Thea Mercouffer is an award-winning documentary filmmaker. Born and raised in Romania, Thea and her family escaped the communist dictatorship in 1987, and immigrated to the US, where she continued to pursue her passion for acting and directing. In 1995 Thea received an MFA from the University of Washington, and in 1996 she was selected by the Goethe Institute to be one of three US representatives at their annual International Conference for Theatre Artists. For the next few years, she traveled the world to work with great masters of theatre, such as Andrei Serban, Tadashi Suzuki, Bart Sherr and Leonid Anissimov. She is the founder of the Seattle Experimental Theatre Company, and the producer of several shows that traveled nationally and internationally, and played to great critical and audience acclaim. Since 2002, she has dedicated her time exclusively to film directing, her attention keenly focused on social issues. Thea directed, co-produced and co-wrote 6 films about sexual assault, in six different languages, as an educational tool for various immigrant communities in the US. Her documentary on human trafficking, I just keep quiet won the Pegasus Award for Excellence - the highest honor for government-sponsored projects. Her short film Heather and Goliath documents the astounding story of US Army Corps of Engineers whistleblower Heather Wylie. Rock the Boat - Saving America's Wildest River, a documentary about the LA River controversy and how one man can make a difference has won multiple festival awards and is in educational and world-wide broadcast distribution. Thea lives and works in Venice, CA, with her husband, their two children, and Moxy the dog.